The National Literacy Strategy was introduced to all Primary Schools in England in September 1998. This followed a pilot project in 1996, which involved schools in 14 Local Education Authorities.
The strategy was planned for teachers to teach a daily Literacy Hour, which followed a pattern of 30 minutes whole class teaching, then group work and concluding with a plenary session.
A number of documents have been published by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) to help teachers raise standards in literacy:

The Framework for Teaching
This sets out termly teaching objectives for each year group, except for Reception, which has yearly objectives. The objectives are organised into 3 areas: Text, Sentence and Word level work.
See DfEE Standards Sitefor further detail.

Published by Department for Education and Employment (DfEE). 1998
ISBN: 0-85522-714-1